Like Many Humans, Ancient Bears Favored Large Peens

These bears knew what's up. Literally. (Ohhh!)

By
Natasha Burton

Sep 26, 2013

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Meghan Sinclair/Team Coco

Humans aren't so different from our fellow mammals when it comes to sex. Sure, we might not mate all out in the open and, typically, we get to know our partners a little before doing the ol' bump and grind, but what attracts one person to another is often very similar to what makes some animals want to jump each other's bones.

Case in point: New research on ancient bears — yes, there are people whose job it is to study ancient bears — shows that female Indarctos arctoides, as these bears are called, may have chosen their mates by their penis size. (Pretty smart, if you ask me.)

Unlike humans, the Indarctos arctoides had penis bones — as do some other modern mammals, actually — which kept the penis nice and erect without having to rely on blood flow alone. The penile bones found in these ancient bears were way longer than the ones modern bears have and, because of various evolutionary factors, researchers believe that bigger penises must be a sexually-selected trait favored by lady-bears.

The longer the bone, the better the support during sex for the female, meaning the longer the love-making sesh, and better positiong to keep the she-bear's reproductive tract open. So, these female bears of yore weren't just choosing a big d*ck for aesthetics, they were doing so because longer sex was more optimal for baby-making. (And, I would assume, because it might have also increased their chances for an orgasm, but, sadly, the study did not look at the pleasure factor.),